


for now, we're safe on the ground

by fugues



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Speculation, spoilers for zexal 88/zexal ii 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 16:03:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fugues/pseuds/fugues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mizael cares about honor. </p><p>A weakness, Shingetsu thinks, as he listens with heart pounding to Mizael’s announcement that he’s going to strike tomorrow. Honor is a weakness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for now, we're safe on the ground

**Author's Note:**

> Based on speculation that if the Barian Lords are the stars of the Big Dipper, Rei is Alcor.

Mizael cares about honor.  
  
A weakness, Shingetsu thinks, as he listens with heart pounding to Mizael’s announcement that he’s going to strike tomorrow. Honor is a weakness. You don’t tell your enemies when you’re going to attack. Stupid.  
  
He’s angry, and shaken, and even more angry with himself for  _being_  angry and shaken. Mizael is the enemy, isn’t he? So long as Shingetsu  _is_  Shingetsu, they’re enemies.  
  
Even in this space between them, he’s still Shingetsu. So long as the Barian Lords want this war, he’s Shingetsu, and so perhaps another time he could have given into the emotions. Been angry at Mizael for his decisions, been shaken by the idea of losing either Mizael or Yuuma or even both of them.   
  
As is, though, Mizael is the enemy. Yuuma is his subordinate. His mission is...  
  
This is what matters; protecting the Barian world, from itself as much as from any outsiders. From its own Lords, if need be.  
  
This  _thing_  with Mizael doesn’t matter, so long as he’s Shingetsu.  
  
(perhaps later, when he can be again what he was before, he’ll grieve)  
  
(perhaps not)  
  
“Tomorrow,” he agrees softly, when the look in Mizael’s eyes gets too questioning.  
  
It’s okay, he thinks. There’s a sadness to Mizael too, and Shingetsu wonders if he’s learned some humility and accepted that Yuuma-kun might beat him. If he fears for himself, fears that he’ll reach an end like Gilag did. Or whether it’s something more possessive; the thought, perhaps, that if he does win it might mean losing Shingetsu in return, because Tsukumo Yuuma is his subordinate.  
  
That’s the way of it, isn’t it? For enemies. And they can’t be anything but. It would be idealistic to think that they could be anything different, truly, no matter the time that they spend in hushed voices and silent touches, learning the tricks of these human bodies with soft sighs and sharp exhalations.  
  
“Tomorrow,” Shingetsu says again, sends fingers skirting down Mizael’s sides and breathes against his lips. “Tonight, then.” Tonight, their last night. Because Mizael will strike tomorrow, as far as Mizael knows.  
  
(Shingetsu would like to be that naïve again, someday)  
  
For a Lord, for someone who ought to be above them all, Mizael is all-too-easy to bend and twist to Shingetsu’s will. So easily rendered mindless by the whims of his human shell, by all the things Shingetsu has taught himself of mouth and hands and other things; so easily reduced to sharp, shaking noises as he grips at Shingetsu’s arms like he’s drowning. Like Shingetsu is his only chance of survival.  
  
He ought to relish it. How easily Mizael submits to him.  
  
(he ought to grieve it)  
  
For all that Mizael is pliant and easily-moved beneath him, for all that he gives in to Shingetsu in a way that he would never for another, for all that he all-but bows before him, it’s not enough. He won’t submit in the one way that  _matters_ , won’t give up this entire foolish endeavor. He stays loyal to his purpose just as Shingetsu does his own, even if these meetings are a betrayal for the both of them.  
  
He won’t give up this war, and so...  
  
Well.  
  
There’s a little more time before that, Shingetsu thinks. Mizael is still panting sharply against his neck, still making needy little noises into his ear, and so Shingetsu calms him with touches, brings him to a crescendo until Mizael falls limp and exhausted against him, clings on close.  
  
Shingetsu should enjoy the sight of Mizael so weak and submissive before him, an enemy subjugated at his hand. What he was before might have enjoyed the sight of Mizael sated and content against him, a lover pleased by his touch.  
  
In the end, he feels nothing at all.  
  
(it’s the only way to do this)  
  
“Tomorrow,” Mizael says against his shoulder, soft and sleepy and all-too-vulnerable. Shingetsu nods, makes a low noise of agreement in the back of his throat and runs his fingers through the limp strands of Mizael’s hair. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, Mizael will...  
  
Well.  
  
That will come. Soon.  
  
Tonight is what matters, though. Tonight, Mizael drifting off against him and Shingetsu glad as he’s never been before for the human façade that makes sleep a necessity. Glad even with the exhaustion that drags at his own eyelids, tries to send him after Mizael into slumber.  
  
He has a duty, though.  
  
He drags it out, perhaps. Spends longer than he ought to only watching Mizael’s face as he sleeps; tells himself he has to wait until he’s certain Mizael is asleep.  
  
(it’s sentiment, though)  
  
(stupid; a Barian’s Guardian should be above sentiment)  
  
(did he hold onto that part of himself, he wonders, even when he took this name?)  
  
Eventually, though, he can’t wait any longer. There’s a lightening to the sky, the hints of dawn’s arrival. The hints of  _tomorrow_. Dawn comes, and he’s certain that Mizael’s awakening will come with it. Perhaps he ought to be able to look an enemy in the eye, do his job honorably as Mizael plans to.  
  
But honor is a weakness. Shingetsu won’t be any weaker than Mizael has already made him.  
  
Even with that in mind, he still drags things out. Lifts Mizael away from him slowly, lays him down and kneels above him.  
  
He had something more elegant in mind, originally; something Mizael might have approved of better. But there’s a kind of honor, he thinks, in doing this instead. The closest he can get to it, the biggest weakness he can allow himself, comes in settling himself down and wrapping his fingers around Mizael’s neck, thumbs pressing into the curve of his throat. A sort of honor, he thinks, in feeling Mizael’s pulse fast and sharp beneath his fingers as he struggles awake with Shingetsu pressing in harder.  
  
(a sort of honor in looking into his eyes for some of this, at the very least)  
  
(does it still count, if his own vision is blurred until he can’t see at all?)  
  
(stupid; tears are stupid and human and Shingetsu is neither of those)  
  
It’s easier than it has any right to be. Mizael is a Lord but not in this world, and these human bodies care so little for their status. They don’t care for the war, or for his or Mizael’s goals, only that they get what they need to function. So reliant on their environment, and when Shingetsu presses his fingers into Mizael’s throat and chokes the air out of him, it doesn’t matter at all that Mizael is a Lord, that Mizael is above him.  
  
It’s easier than it has any right to be but still harder than anything before it, and when Shingetsu pushes Mizael’s eyes shut it’s with hands that shake with exhaustion and something like anger, too. With shaking hands and burning eyes, with wet cheeks and the cold ache of exhaustion taking over his limbs so that he settles there. Stays kneeling above Mizael but leans his head forward until their foreheads are pressed together, exhales in sharp gasps and tries not to think about how easy it is to steal those exhalations away from a body like this.  
  
“It’s for the best,” he says instead, voice hoarse and cracking on the words; exhausted, grieving even if he should be above that. A voice that belongs to what he was, even if the words belong to what he  _is_. “For the sake of the Barian world.”


End file.
